This page discusses the business that was sold in 1988. See Rover Company for the business Leyland Motors purchased in 1967. Refer to Rover for the brand (marque).
The Rover Group plc, a state-owned corporation since 1975, replaced British Leyland as the British automobile manufacturing behemoth known as “BL plc” until 1986. At first, it included the Land Rover Group, Freight Rover vans, Leyland Trucks, and the Austin Rover Group automobile business (which includes the Austin, Rover, Mini, and MGmarks). Additionally, the Rover Group had the inactive trademarks of other businesses that had amalgamated with British Leyland and its forerunners, including Triumph, Morris, Wolseley, Riley, and Alvis.
From 1988 to 1994, British Aerospace (BAe) was the owner of the Rover Group. The remaining automobile division of Rover Group plc was sold by BAe to BMW in 1994. When Ford bought the Land Rover business in 2000, the group was subsequently split up, with the Rover and MG marques operating under the considerably smaller MG Rover Group until 2005. BMW (Germany), SAIC (China), and Tata Motors (India) currently possess the original Rover Group marques, with the latter owning the Rover brand itself and its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover owning the majority of the ancient Rover company’s assets.
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Group MG Rover
The last locally held mass-production automobile manufacturer in the British automotive sector was MG Rover Group. The business was established in 2000 after BMW sold the Phoenix Consortium the original Rover Group’s car-making and engine-manufacturing assets.
After MG Rover entered administration in 2005, Nanjing Automobile Group acquired its core assets. In 2007, Nanjing resumed production of MG sports cars and sports saloons. That year, SAIC Motor and Nanjing combined (the largest vehicle manufacturer in China). The UK division’s name was changed to MG Motor UK in 2009. From 2008 to 2010, the MG TF was produced in the former MG Rover Longbridge plant and distributed in the UK. The MG 6 was introduced in the UK in 2011 and was the first completely new MG in 16 years (assembled at the Longbridge factory). A supermini (the MG 3) was launched to the lineup in 2013, which helped MG Motor become the UK’s fastest-growing automaker in 2014.
Ford, which had acquired Land Rover from BMW in 2000, purchased the Rover brand, which had been held by BMW and leased to MG Rover. Ford sold the Jaguar Cars and Land Rover businesses, as well as the rights to the defunct Rover brand, to Tata Motors in 2008.
Rover, the last great British automaker, is merging with BMW. Honda, a 20% shareholder and critic of the $1.2-billion deal, says it jeopardizes the company’s “Britishness and Roverness.”
The sale to Germany’s BMW for $1.2 billion was announced by the Rover automobile manufacturer, the last significant automaker in Britain.
It is anticipated that the sale by British Aerospace, which holds 80% of Rover’s stock, will enable Rover to increase its market share by selling its vehicles through BMW dealerships in the US and Europe.
Honda, a Japanese automaker that owns 20% of Rover and transformed the business by modernizing its product line and implementing cost-cutting techniques on the production line, condemned the purchase. Despite keeping its investment, Honda’s partnership with Rover may not continue in the long run, according to industry sources.
A Honda official in Tokyo stated, “We have been working with Rover for 15 years with the goal of keeping the Britishness and Roverness of the indigenous British enterprise.”
According to Honda President Nobuhiko Kawamoto, the unexpected sale “negates Honda’s and Rover’s long-term efforts to secure a stable future for Rover as a British corporation with its own brand identity.” “Honda has always believed that Rover’s independence was a crucial to the success of this collaboration.”
The agreement, which needs to be approved by regulators and the stockholders of British Aerospace, is also anticipated to face opposition from those who oppose the British government. They argued that the taxpayers lost millions of dollars as a result of the sale of Rover to British Aerospace in 1988, when Rover was still a nationalized business, because the price was significantly undervalued.
The sale price was significantly higher than anticipated, which, according to financial experts, explains in part why British Aerospace opted to offload, sending the company’s shares soaring on Monday.
Last year, Rover lost $13.5 million, but it was anticipated that this year would see a significant improvement.
In essence, the deal signals the demise of a British-owned volume auto sector. Since Jaguar was sold to Ford Motor Company over five years ago, Rolls-Royce is the only legendary brand from British automotive history that is still owned by British people.
BMW will pay $840 million at the completion of the deal and $360 million on June 30 to buy Rover together with its debts.
British Aerospace committed to delivering all of the product’s brand names, including Rover, Land Rover, MG, Triumph, and Austin, as part of the deal. The brand under which the business that created British icons including the Wolesley, Riley, Austin Seven, Morris Oxford, and Morris Minor operated most recently was known as Rover. The renown Mini, the Rover 2000, the Metro, and the most recent flag-bearer, the Rover 800, followed.
Who sold BMW Rover?
Rover produced 478,866 automobiles in 1994, the year British Aerospace sold the Rover Group to BMW. 19.78% of the total, or 94,716 vehicles, were Land Rovers. Nowadays, Solihull produces more cars than it did in 1968, when the Rover brand was at its height. Although there were doubts about the build quality and productivity, there was no denying that something was working. Rover now had a new design partner in the form of BMW, whether they liked it or not, but was it the correct partner?
Rover immediately brings to mind executive cars. Additionally, the brand BMW conjures up ideas of executive vehicles…
That was a union that was never going to succeed. In some areas that were essential to Rover’s revenue stream, there was model overlap. The top-of-the-line Rover 600 and 800 models have the most visible ones. BMW had no intention of supporting a direct competitor to the 3 and 5 Series.
How come BMW sold Rover?
The BMW directors were overly enthused and undervalued what they were purchasing when they purchased the Rover since it was inexpensive. It has been cash-starved for years and lacked profits and a solid balance sheet. However, compared to BMW’s manufacturing capacity of 500,000 automobiles, it was enormous in terms of capitalization.
What price did BMW get for Land Rover?
BMW kept the Cowley Plant, which has received significant investment to produce the “new” Mini, while selling other assets at market value and selling Land Rover to Ford for PS 1,800 million. BMW was referred to as a firm that “produces one saloon in three different sizes” at the time of the Rover acquisition.
When did Rover become obsolete?
From 1904 to 2005, the British automaker Rover was the leading manufacturer. Before beginning to produce automobiles in 1904, the Rover Company was founded in 1878 as a manufacturer of bicycles. The company’s emblem was an iconic longship from the Viking era. Although Jaguar Land Rover now owns the trademark rights, the Rover brand is currently dormant and no vehicles are being produced under it.
The Rover brand maintained its identity despite being state-controlledly absorbed by the Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) in 1967, as well as subsequent mergers, nationalizations, and demergers, first as a separate subsidiary division of LMC, and then through various groups within British Leyland (BL) throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s.
As it fell first into the hands of British Aerospace and subsequently into the control of BMW Group, the Rover marque thereafter became the main brand of the newly and eponymously renamed Rover Group, which also featured the actually stronger and more valuable brand names Land Rover and Mini. The brand saw a resurgence in the 1990s in its primary midsize car market because to financial investment made during BMW ownership and technology sharing with Honda.
The Phoenix Consortium founded the MG Rover Group at Longbridge after purchasing the Rover and related MG automobile operations of the Rover Group from BMW in 2000. Rover’s trademark was still owned by BMW, who gave MG Rover permission to use it under license. When the MG Rover Group went bankrupt in April 2005, production of vehicles bearing the Rover name ended. The assets of the MG Rover Group were subsequently divided between two Chinese automakers; SAIC Motor purchased some of the assets and used the technology it acquired to create a new Chinese line of Roewe-branded luxury saloons. By purchasing additional assets, Nanjing Automobile.
Ford purchased the Rover brand from BMW in 2006 for around PS6 million, exercising a first-choice purchase option that had been granted to them when it acquired Land Rover in 2000. In order to safeguard its brand, Ford rejoined the original Rover Company marques. Ford and Tata Motors of India came to an agreement in March 2008 for them to purchase Ford’s Jaguar Land Rover business, which will also include the Rover brand. According to the conditions of Ford’s acquisition of the name in 2006, the Rover brand is technically Land Rover’s property.
Uses BMW engines Range Rover?
I shared the enthusiasm of many other BMW lovers when I learned that the German automaker will be working with Land Rover to deliver V8 engines for more expensive vehicles, notably the top-of-the-line Range Rover P530. Why would BMW fans be thrilled about such a collaboration? because building a relationship between the two brands is really cool and because Range Rovers are pretty generally adored.
Only the aforementioned P530, which utilizes a slightly modified version of BMW’s “N63” 4.4 liter twin-turbocharged V8, is currently a Range Rover product to use a BMW V8 engine. The V8 still has 523 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque for Range Rover use. To handle some of the utility a Range Rover needs, it has been slightly modified.
It would have been totally natural for Range Rover supporters and consumers to worry that installing a BMW V8 in the engine bay might affect the vehicle’s ability to handle rough terrain. Ranges are robust, sturdy SUVs behind their glitzy exteriors, capable of off-roading that would put most Jeeps to shame. For this reason, Range Rover engines need to be a little bit tougher. It makes sense that BMW engines would be reluctant to be used in a Range Rover because they aren’t normally designed to handle the steep inclines and deep water wading that Range Rovers can handle.
But the Range Rover P530 was given a new, taller air intake on the BMW N63, enabling it to wade through up to 35.4 inches of water. It also received a new oil sump so that it could withstand the sharp angles and back-and-forth sloshing that a Range might subject it to without depriving the engine of oil.
The good thing about this is that BMW buyers may now be more likely to choose a Range Rover P530 over, say, an X7 because they can now purchase a car with greater off-road capability while still maintaining some BMW DNA. Additionally, BMW V8 or not, the P530 can still manage all a true Range needs to manage, according to Range Rover customers.
Ford sold Range Rover when?
Although the current organization is complicated, Land Rover has long been known for it. As a member of the Rover brand, the first Land Rover was introduced in 1948, and the first Range Rover followed in 1970. British Leyland eventually acquired the Rover brand, which changed its name to Rover Triumph. Land Rover was separated into its own subsidiary firm following the bankruptcy of BL and subsequent nationalization. British Leyland changed their name to Rover in 1988 after going back into private ownership in 1986. Rover was later purchased by BMW in 1994, and Ford purchased Land Rover in 2000. (which also purchased Jaguar). In 2008, Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors, who subsequently established the Jaguar Land Rover division that is still in operation today.
Before becoming the opulent series of SUVs available today, the Range Rover itself was initially a pretty practical off-road vehicle. The majority of Range Rover vehicles are still very capable off-road despite the added luxury.